Taught By My Example - @Studio30Plus Writing Prompt

"Having grandkids is great" I thought. "You get to teach them stuff and play with them, not to mention spoil them with gifts and candy and such, and when they start to get tired or a little out of control you get to give them back."

So I starting thinking and planning what I'd do with my grandkids the next time they visited. They're my daughter's kids. And I love to spoil them while making things difficult for her and her husband - in a fun way of course. They'd tell their parents "But Grampa said... " I look upon it sort of as karma. My daughter's not so sure.

"Let's see" I said to myself "we've already loaded them up on chocolate and revved them up on sweets before they had to go home."

"And" I laughed "there was the Christmas I gave my eldest grandson a drum." That didn't last very long for some reason. Somehow playing it in the early hours of the morning didn't go over very well with his parents.

"Let's see, the eldest is seven and the twins are four. I think they're old enough" I said to my wife. "It's time they learned a long-standing family tradition handed down to me from my father and from me to my children." "Are you sure?" queried my wife. "You're daughter will kill you." "Maybe" I said but the kids will love it. And besides the tradition must live on."

And so my daughter her husband and the kids visited. We sat down to dinner. BBQ'd burgers and hot dogs - their favourite. And for desert? JELL-O!

"Hey guys, watch this" I enthused. And as I squished the JELL-O between my teeth turning it to liquid they stared at me wide-eyed with their mouths agape as I gargled my dessert. Oh, there were hoots and hollers over Grampa's antics and soon there was JELL-O everywhere; running down kids faces, dribbling from their mouths and down the front of their shirts. Over the gargling JELL-O and gales of laughter my daughter looked at me with eyes that could kill, knowing full well this was an antic that would now be repeated when she got them home.

"Thanks, Dad, I..." and she broke down and started laughing as she looked at me with JELL-O streaming out of my left nostril.

"Hey" I gargled proudly "I can honestly say they've been taught by my example."

And she replied "Yeah - some example!"

The Polka Dot Door

A long time ago, when I was 22, my first child was born. That kid grew up on a little Canadian kid's show called Polka Dot Door, produced by the TV Ontario network. And Dad, more often than not, sat through those shows with his little one. Nine or so years later when a brother, and a year after that when a sister came along number one son was moving on to Knight Rider and The Dukes of Hazzard. But there was a nice overlap where his siblings picked up where he had left off with Polka Dot Door. And Dad was right there to welcome them. So you're looking at a Polka Dot Door veteran. The show began in 1971 and ran to 1993. I didn't watch the full run but I did get in my fair share. The formula was pretty simple. A young male and female host, which seemed to change every week, sang songs, told stories, made crafts and generally did their best stimulate little brains. The show opened as follows... Imagination Day! Oh boy! You know what happens on Imagination D

My Back Pages - November

I know, I know, I know I should have reported in before now. But sometimes real life just gets in the way. I attempted 5 books in November. I say attempted because I slapped a big DNF (did not finish) on Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. I just can't seem to get into this guy. It's the second or third of his I've given up on, Not so the other four, starting with a biography of Stephen Stills called Change Partners. This followed by a hilarious biography of the guy responsible for National Lampoon called A Stupid and Futile Gesture - How Doug Kenney and National Lampoon Changed Comedy Forever. I ended the month reading yet another biography, this one of the man behind Rolling Stone magazine,. It was called Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine. A fascinating read. So last month I hit the magic number 50 I'd imagined for myself back in January. If I roll this month into my yearly total I'm at 54 books. And I still hav

30 Days of Photos III #4 Sour

Check out Ziva's Inferno for the rest of today's photos.

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